Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a printer for printing of printable objects for identification of electrical components, with a housing, with a print space which is made within the housing, with a print head, with a replaceable ink ribbon cassette which has an ink ribbon, with a receiving device for a printable object which is to be printed, with a control and evaluation unit and with an input and display apparatus, and the receiving device can travel between a loading and unloading position outside the print space and a print position within the print space.
Description of Related Art
In industrial and commercial practice, for marking and labeling of machinery, devices, terminals, cables or leads, different types of marking and identification labels are used on which information is applied relating to the components to which they are assigned. To do this the marking and identification labels in a printer are provided with a corresponding print pattern, generally alphanumeric characters. Different printers with different printing methods are used for identification, for example inkjet printers, thermotransfer printers or UV printers. These identification printers are known for example from the catalog “Identification Systems Tools Installation Material, 2013/2014”, pages 28 to 37 of Phoenix Contact GmbH & Co. KG.
In practice, printable objects in card format which have a plurality of individual identification labels are often used. The printable items are made in particular as plastic injected parts or as plastic stamped parts. In plastic injected parts which are also called Universal Card Material (UniCard or UC Material) the identification labels are fastened via webs in an outer frame. After printing, the individual identification labels which are often used for the identification of leads and cables and for clamp identification are separated from the frame. For plastic stamped parts which are also called Universal Sheet Material (UniSheet or US Material) several rows of identification labels together form a printable object, and after printing of the US material the individual identification labels can be separated from one another.
Moreover several marking and identification labels can also be applied, in particular cemented, on a common carrier sheet, from which the individual marking and identification labels can be easily pulled off after identification. In practice these carrier sheets are also called lettering sheets and label sheets.
The different types of labeling materials are generally called printable objects below, and the printable objects can consist of different materials, in particular different plastics, and can have different dimensions, especially different material thicknesses. In order to be able to print printable objects with different dimensions by a printer, the individual printable objects are preferably not directly inserted into the receiving device, but into a magazine which is suitable for the printable object and which is inserted into the receiving device. Generally several printable objects can be inserted individually into a magazine so that the numbers of printable objects is larger than the number of magazines. If all magazines have the same outside dimensions, the magazines can each be inserted into the receiving device of the printer which can be moved in the manner of a drawer between a loading and unloading position outside the print space and a print position within the print space.
To print these printable objects, thermotransfer printers have turned out to be especially suitable. In thermotransfer printing a special film which is coated with temperature-sensitive inks is routed through between the printable object and a thermoprint head, and the film as an ink ribbon can be located in a corresponding printer cassette. With thermotransfer printing an exact ink impression and high print quality with high surface gloss can be produced. But for this purpose it is necessary that the print parameters such as the temperature, print speed, material and thickness of the printable object and of the ink ribbon are exactly matched to one another.
With the printer under consideration which is preferably a thermotransfer printer, a plurality of different printable objects are to be able to be printed. For the printer there are then a plurality of different magazines which can be inserted into the receiving device. Moreover several different printer cassettes with different ink ribbons are also to be able to be used.
In a portable thermotransfer printer known from practice the housing has an essentially L-shaped fixed housing part and a housing hood which is pivotably attached laterally to the top of the fixed housing part. Underneath the pivotable housing hood there is a holder for the ink ribbon which consists of two shafts. One shaft is used to hold the main spool with the ink ribbon wound onto it and the other spool is used to hold the take-up spool. To insert a new ink ribbon, first the housing hood must be swung up so that the main spool can be slipped onto the first shaft. Afterwards the free end of the ink ribbon must be pulled off the main spool and attached to the take-up spool, and the ink ribbon must be guided past the print head by a guide. Altogether the insertion of a new ink ribbon is thus associated with effort, and it must be watched that the ink ribbon is properly routed past the print head and attached to the take-up spool.
DE 694 14 539 T2 corresponds to U.S. Pat. No. 5,620,265 discloses an ink ribbon cassette which can be inserted as a whole in a corresponding receiver in a printer. The ink ribbon cassette has a main spool, a feed spool and an ink ribbon. The ink ribbon is wound around the main spool, the free end of the ink ribbon being connected to the take-up spool onto which it is wound during printing. The two spools with the ink ribbon are located in a cassette body which consists of a lower shell for holding the two spools and a shell-shaped cover. In the lower shell of the cassette body a window is formed which is located between the two spools so that printing of a printable object which is located underneath the window is possible when the print head is located above the ink ribbon between the two spools.
When using this ink ribbon cassette the replacement of the complete ink ribbon cassette can be easily performed, but to ensure the optimum distance between the print head and the ink ribbon very exact positioning of the spools in the cassette body and of the cassette body in the housing of the printer and also of the print head relative to the cassette body is necessary to ensure that the print head has a given distance to the ink ribbon in the course of printing.